lazy saturday.

almost like lazy sunday. which is hilarious. but not completely appropriate... just fyi. watch it here for a laugh.

anyway. my lazy saturday.

less about narnia, more about lazy food.

french toast. 

made much better with an addition of nutmeg. i never used to own nutmeg. now that i do i force it upon many foods.

and apple slices with an array of toppings. coconut, dried cranberries, peanut butter, chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, and crushed heath bar. 

there's no wrong way... to eat an apple.
(like the old reese's commercial? get it?)

also, check out those flowers. thanks, amanda! 

they are made of yarn and are awesome.

happy lazy days to all.

nuts for coco.

or just coconut chicken.


i started with a recipe from pinterest, but it wasn't so well done.
so here's my version:

coconut chicken:
1. thinly cut 2 chicken breast so that the pieces are 1/2 inch thick or so.
2. quickly brush a coat of olive oil on the chicken.
3. spray a pan and lay the chicken breasts, not touching.
3. sprinkle this mixture on the turned up side of the chicken: 1/2 cup coconut, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, a bit of salt and pepper
4. melt 2 tablespoons of butter and drizzle on top.
5. cook for 10 minutes or so.
6. turn the chicken over, sprinkle the coconut mixture on the other side, drizzle another 1-2 tablespoons of butter.
7. cook for another 10 minutes.
8. take out and dip in sauce. YUM.


dipping sauce:
2 parts orange marmalade and 1 part honey mustard. mix it together.
SO GOOD.

try it. you won't regret it.

a day of meals.

lazy sundays are the best.

fun breakfast:

(i made eggs over easy for the first time in my life!)

 me looking goooood.

 and delicious dinner!

cilantro lime shrimp. 

i found a recipe, but adapted it quite a bit.

here's my altered version:

1. saute 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil.

2. add a clove of garlic for a minute or two.

3. and a dash of red pepper flakes and a 1/2 teaspoon of oregano.

4. add 1-2 roma tomatoes, diced.  let them simmer for a few minutes.

5. add 1/2-3/4 lb of shrimp. 

6. add the zest of a lime and the juice from a lime.

7. let it cook for a while, until the shrimp is pink and cooked through.

8. take it off the heat and mix in a good handful of chopped fresh cilantro.

seriously amazing. on top of white rice.

happy weekend to all!

oh, and if you want to do something awesome, you should go see the amazing Rembrandt exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Art--it puts together art from Rembrandt and his students that haven't been together since they were in his studio 350 years ago! seriously amazing.

cookies and friends.

on tuesday, my college roommate came for a sleepover!

we did a bit of a photo shoot... hey, you can't blame us, we don't see each other too often anymore.

some things never change.

yes, that's fake poop.

that katie left here from new years.

 we also baked cookies for my students.

i've made several peanut butter blossom recipes, but this recipe is the best one i've done so far:

food network's peanut butter blossoms.

speaking of peanut butter... check out this great friends clip:


(it's joey showing what an appetizer of "peanut butter fingers" would look like at a wedding)

enjoy!

cupcakes. delicious cupcakes.

matt's gone on call.

so what do i do?

turn on food network and bake some cupcakes.

devil's food cupcakes, cherry filling, cherry buttercream.

(click the words to get to the recipes).

check them out:

 hey yo. incredible.

you should make them! 

meals and busy lives.

our lives have been hectic.

matt on a lot of call during internal medicine. (barf.)

me having a ton of stuff for grad school. (double barf.)

so, not a lot of excitement... but there's snow. 

i don't know if that's exciting or not.

 snow with cute paw prints on one part of our balcony.

and snow with bags of trash and furniture on the other side.

and there it is. our hectic lives mean lazy-to-actually-take-the-trash-all-the-way-out.

welcome to our world. eh, well.

 but. a delicious meal. homemade chicken nuggets. with homemade fries. and so simple! (thanks, pinterest. again.)

everyone probably already makes these. but just in case there's a soul out there who's like me and was in awe, here's the simple recipe:

cut up chicken breast, sprinkle salt and pepper, wash in olive oil, roll in a mixture of bread crumbs+parm, bake on a baking sheet for 8 minutes at 425, then turn them over and cook for another 5. ta-da!

who says you need children to eat like them?

deeelish.

reminiscing.

welp. something i do more than anyone should.

reminisce.

i actually have a reason this time.

i'm talking to some students about purity. (not first graders. come on.)

and a commentary i read talked about 1 corinthians 13.

so then it began... (prepare yourself. serious loving going on.)

 the letters that were at each stop of my scavenger hunt proposal.

the initial picture. we don't look so good, but in our defense: i had just spent a long time finding letters, crying, laughing, calling people, and driving. 

and he had just spent a long time on this:

yep. candles on railroad tracks.

enter excitement.

i even found cards from some of these lovely ladies in the bag with matt's letters. and joyfully cried. :)

our save the date. yes, we took that picture with a crappy camera on self timer. on accident.

if that's not skill i don't know what is!

engagement pics. 

(by the wonderful erin geyer--find her here).

 and the big rehearsal. 

(by the incredible jen schmid--find her here).

and then it happened.

okay, i promise i'm done now.

antonyms. via 6 year olds.

on a particularly rough day, here's something that brought joy to my life.


antonyms.
via 6 and 7 year olds.
they were to fill in their own antonyms... a few examples:


food and candy.
cool and cold.
night and sun.
hop and run.
run and pizza.
toys and pizza.
hair (spelled her) and bald (spelled bold).
read and eat.


and my personal favorite:


legos and cars.


oh, the joy of my life.

the weekend when many of my favorite things happened all at once.

so, new years eve.
you're supposed to get dressed up and go out, right?
not this year.
...this new years weekend, we did many other of my favorite things:

thing #1 i love: going out to dinner.
thing #2 i love: slows bbq
thing #3 i love: incredible friends. and a wonderful husband.

 thing #4 i love: fires in the fireplace.

 thing #5 i love: gift exchanges. (these are the scarves i made)

thing #6 i love: cheesy sweatshirts.
thing #7 i love: glorious gifts from people that know me well.

 thing #7 i love: fun wrapping and artsy pictures. (thanks, matt).

 thing #8 i love: anthropologie mugs.

thing #9 i love: bailey.
thing #10 i love: GAMES. like settlers. which we played tons of.

thing #11 i love: group pictures wearing everything we got. we have many years worth of pictures like this one.

thing #12 i love: amazing headwarmers. 
thing #13 i love: mustard yellow and gray together. (duh. thus the new blog design.) insert huge mustard yellow bow. joy.

thing #14 i love: when making something is successful. check out the headwarmer from all angles.

thing #15 i love: katie teaching sus and i how to make things and then solving all our issues along the way.

thing #16 i love: making clothes! amazing cardigan, right? yep. i made that. with more than a little help from katie.

 thing #17 i love: sewing days.

thing #18 i love: homemade mug cozy. never will my hand get too hot or too cold again.

thing #19 i love: homemade meals. cilantro lime tacos. (find them here) to start off our new years eve.

there it is. many of the things i love, all in one weekend.

ahhh.

happy 2012!